Foods for a bimac (newbie)

I have recently set up a 29g for a bimac and am doing some research to make sure I will be able to feed it properly! I am extremely excited to get one of these awesome looking creatures, but I want to make sure I do everything responsibly.

I can not go gather from any s/w source as I live in Northern VA about 2++ hours from any shore... maybe I could go for a trip for fun once or something, but it would DEFINITELY not be a regular thing.

I have read a lot here and it seems that crayfish are good, as well as crabs. I know that I can get these at LFS's but they are not very cheap.. maybe $3 for 4"'ish crayfish and all I can find are fiddler crabs for around $3 or $4 as well. This seems somewhat expensive to feed every day, but I could certainly supplement with this. Other foods I hear mentioned are frozen raw shrimp/scallops/clams/squid from the grocery store. Will an octo readily accept this food even though it is dead? I see on octopets that they sell baby clams, this looks like it could be good nutrition to supplement the octo's diet as well?

I also see people talk about feeding ghost shrimp or feeder goldfish. I understand that feeder goldfish aren't 'nutritious' (i don't really understand why) but are they okay for a snack every now and then?

Something that really is confusing me is a lot of these foods sound to me like they are freshwater, like crayfish and goldfish and ghost shrimp.. so wouldn't they just die right away when I put them into the tank?

Thanks a lot, I appreciate any information or advice you all can give me!

Are you going to get a baby bimac from Octopets? Then get the clams along with the octo, since these babies were raised on the baby clams. Then you can introduce frozen shrimp.

Keep a bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer and cut off pices and thaw them out as needed. It's good if yousupplement with live food. You can mail order fiddler crabs for a little over $1 each. Fresh or frozen scallops are good, too.

Ghost shrimp are freshwater and will die quickly, but your octo will like them. I wouldn't feed many - later when your octo has more hunting skills, you could order some shore shrimp as a treat. Crawfish will also die within a few hours.

Beware of putting crabs or crawfish with large claws in with your octo - your octo can get severely pinched. You can remove the claws. Be sure to take out the remains of live food shortly after it's been eaten.

Avoid goldfish and other aquarium fish - they may have received copper treatment. Feeder fish are often not in the best of health, either.

Thanks for the fast reply! Yes I am planning on getting mine from octopets, so that is good information to know. From everything I have heard I am going to plan on getting a few hundred of the baby clams to feed, and then also use raw shrimp (I use it for my other tanks) after the octo gets acclimated. I also use squid as food for some of my other fish, so I was planning on offering some of this as well. Along with crabs and maybe a crayfish rarely as a treat, is this enough nutrition?

I am also planning on maybe having some live rock, so perhaps this will contribute as a food source somewhat

after a certain size they becoem too difficult to catch and they need bigger prey items... an octo can eat catch and eat crabs about the same size as its mantle so even small bimacs can eat fair sized food.

i got the octo kit my self from octo pets and i've been feeding him the baby clams. but i also found some fidiler crabs in centerville and my octo realy liked them. and nancy was right you can mail order some for pretty chep out of FL. he also likes hermit crabs, wich i found for a $ 1.00 a piece in centerville.